Is any publicity good publicity?

Waitrose's bright idea to embrace Twitter and encourage customers to tweet 'I shop at Waitrose because...' with the #WaitroseReasons hashtag sparked way more publicity than the brand anticipated - not all of it good... Twitter was awash with tweets lampooning the brand for its upper middle class credentials, products and customers, such as “I also shop at Waitrose because I was once in the Holloway Road brand and heard a dad say ‘Put the papaya down Orlando!”.

As PR watchers such as Marketing Week and Marketing magazine debate the old adage 'is any publicity good publicity?' the question is probably more about social media and lack of control. If you unleash a social media PR strategy it WILL, at some point, backfire. Non-users, or even active opponents, of the brand have as much access to a medium such as Twitter as loyal customers. In which case, you need a crisis plan, you need to monitor activity and you need to be actively and imaginatively engaged in the debate.

Waitrose attempted to tackle the tweets with their own tweet, however it fell short - "Thanks for all the genuine and funny #WaitroseReasons tweets. We always like to hear what you think and enjoyed reading most of them." Perhaps talking the consumers' own language, with humour and tongue in cheek, may have been more appropriate...and a one off tweet just won't cut it.